I'm Home! (And oh so Tired)

I have been traveling for thirty five hours, twenty four of which were on airplanes.  We left our house in Lugazi, Uganda at 4 AM Utah time and headed to the Entebbe airport, where we arrived three hours early for our flight. We couldn't even check in yet so we just waited until we could.  We played scum (a card game) until it was time to board the airplane.  The flight from Entebbe to Nairobi I think was about an hour and a half and they fed us a meal.  I was surprised when a flight attentant told me to put my tray up because we were going to land shortly.

The Nairobi International Airport was so very small, basically it is just one hall way with a few shops and gates along it.  We had a three hour layover there so we mostly just played scum and then boarded the over night flight that would take us to London.  I was able to get a little bit of sleep.  I woke up about half way through the flight and watched 500 Days of Summer.  I had a hard time sleeping because I was anxious to get home and also felt nausous.

We got into London with enough time to ckeck in for our flight and find our gate.  I was hungry and wanted some real food, so I was able to stop at this little italian place and buy a sandwich, potato chips and some water and then continued on to the gate.  I ate my sandwich and opened the water, took a sip and I had accidentally bought sparkling water.  Guess I would be throwing that away... oh well at least they had water on the airplane.

I wasn't able to sleep much on the airplane from London to Dallas.  I watched Just go with it with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler.  I enjoyed it but don't take my word for it, I don't know if it was the circumstances or if it was legitamately good :)  I started another movie and was finally able to get a little sleep.   

I got off the plane quickly when we arrived in Dallas and the first thought I had was ah American air- or something to that effect.  I headed to customs and got through the line and went straight to the baggage claim-  I had to recheck my luggage to make sure that it got to Salt Lake City.  I was standing there for about twenty minutes before I decided to look on the other side of the baggage claim.  Someone had taken both of my bags off of the belt and set them on the floor.  So annoying!  Maybe they thought they were their bags and took them off and just left them there.  It was frustrating because I only had two hours to get through customs, recheck my baggage and get on the plane. 

I finally found my bags and had to get a new tag so they would make it to SLC.  I handed them off the guy who was in charge of getting them rechecked and headed towards the second part of customs.  There was a huge line and I had to be on my flight in forty minutes.  I thought for sure I would miss it.  About half way through the line, a guy came and opened the rope to let us out to talk to a different customs offficer.   He truly must have been an angel sent from heaven.  

We finished the customs stuff and had to go through security yet again (I swear I went through security 500 times that day.)  I took my shoes off, sent my bag through the scanner machine and walked through the metal detector.  The lady who was looking at the scanner told me she had to look through my backpack-I kept looking at my watch and seeing the time getting closer to 3.  I was getting so stressed out and worried about missing my flight.  I HAD to get home on time.  She went through my bag and found my therma care heat wraps, took those out and had to rescan my bag.  FINALLY I was good to go. 

I had to take a train to get to my gate,  I got on the train and had to wait for three stops before it was my stop.  I got off and ran to my gate, when I got there I saw a line of people waiting to board so I quickly ran into a shop and bought a pen.  I went straight to the gate and got on the plane.  Then our flight was delayed...  There was some kind of mechanical problem so we had to wait for a mechanic to come fix it and then there was something going on with the weather so we had to wait for extra  fuel.  We finally took off and in three hours I would be in Salt Lake and get to see my family.  I pretty much slept for the whole flight.  We finally landed and I got out of the plane as quickly as I could.  I stopped at the bathroom and then went straight to the baggage claim to meet my family.

I came out and there were so many people waiting for missionaries.  I finally saw my family!   They all had signs that said my name.  I ran and hugged my sister and the rest of my family.  It was the moment I had been waiting for.  My sister took my backback and we went to get the rest of my luggage.  We took some pictures and then got into the car.  We went home, I took a hot shower and we ate my mom's homemade spaghetti for dinner.  I showed everyone my prizes from Afica and then we ate german chocolate birthday cake.  I ate way to much food, but it tasted so good and I have had nothing like it for six weeks.

At 11 PM I couldn't stay awake any longer and went to bed.  I pretty much stayed up all night according to Ugandan time.  It was good though because I need to get back on Utah time so I slept when I supposed to sleep.  It was hard to sleep becasue I felt like it was daytime and I should be out doing something, even though I was exhausted.   It took me a while to realise where I was when I woke up in the morning.

I had a great time in Africa and was able to see and learn alot but I'm so happy to be back home with my family and friends and I'm looking forward to figuring out what the next step for me is.  I'm very dazed at the moment and don't think it has fully hit me that I am home.